movie "Perfume-A Murderer's Story" is adapted from the best-selling novel "Perfume" of the same name by the famous German writer Juskind. The story of
is set in Paris, France in the 18th century. It tells the legendary story of a genius who was destined to be different since its birth: the protagonist of the
film, Jean Baptiste Grenoye, has a keen sense of smell and a sense of smell. Nearly morbid obsession, in order to preserve the world’s most beautiful scent ---girl's body fragrance, in order to make a unique perfume, he murdered more than a dozen girls, and he opened it when he was arrested and taken to the execution ground. This mysterious bottle of perfume...
The novel was once classified by the famous director Brick as "a novel that cannot be put on the screen" because the description of the smell in the novel is difficult to express in audiovisual language.
The famous German producer Bern Yichinger (producer of "The Name of the Rose") prepared for 21 years in order to adapt the wonderful kingdom of smell in the novel into a movie, and was finally prepared by German director Tom Tickway The novel was put on the screen in 2006.
With its wonderful sound and picture effects and unique aesthetics, "Perfume" can still be regarded as a spectacle in the film industry from the beginning of its release to today. The wonderful sound and picture effect of
01
In the two-hour-long movie, the combination of the length of the movie picture, especially the extensive use of perspective and close-up, is one of the ways to prevent the audience from visual fatigue. A large number of close-ups in the
film are mainly used to portray character features and detailed descriptions, especially the two close-ups of Grenaud’s nose:
, one of which, at the beginning of the film, Grenoyer in prison exposed his nose to light. Under the effect of light and shadow, his nose became the most eye-catching symbol in the dark. In the silence, with the exaggerated suction of his nose, people's voices came from a distance---exaggeratingly showing his sensitive sense of smell;
When he was subsequently taken up the city wall by soldiers, it was a close-up of his face. The camera slowly advanced to his nose. With rapid breathing, the camera quickly advanced into his nasal cavity, which not only showed his talent for smell. It is different, and full of suspense in line with the plot, bringing a different visual experience to the audience.
In order to express the smell visually, the film adopts the synesthetic technique of montage, adopting the method of rapid alternate switching between the first person's perspective and the third person's perspective, so that the audience will have the illusion of smell when watching the film.
is like when Grenoir was born at the fishmonger market: the film uses a large number of short shots to quickly splice a hellish scene before us-animal bloody internal organs, rotting corpses, wriggling maggots, With the viscous vomit, under the impact of these nauseating images, the audience seems to feel bursts of suffocating odors on their faces, which is disgusting. The
film uses the lens language vividly. In addition to the above close-up and screen switching, it also uses moving shots to express the smoothness of the screen. For example, Grenoye follows the plot of selling orange girls, and the camera uses Grenoye’s first-person perspective. Walking through the streets, the camera shakes to create a sense of visual urgency;
uses a long lens to shoot the scene of Grenoyer’s youth lying on a wood and sniffing everything. The picture leads the audience to walk through nature like clouds and flowing water. For an instant, we can feel that everything is given life.
02
In the film, color not only accurately conveys the meaning contained in it, but also promotes the expansion of the plot and the transition of the plot, setting off the atmosphere for the narrative of the film. The
film starts with a dark and cool color that is almost black and white. It shows the living environment of the bottom working people in Paris, France in the 18th century. The gloomy sky, the dirty and muddy ground, the dilapidated and wet houses show the depression of psychological space.
With the growth of Grenoye, the color of the picture gradually became richer and brighter.
Secondly, color expresses the feelings of characters and guides the emotional color of the audience. In the
film, the extreme cold and warm tones not only hint at the development and transition of the plot, but also hint at the psychological activities of the protagonist. When Grenoyer is in a negative environment, the picture is a depressive dark and cold tone, and when he is in a positive environment In the middle, the picture appears bright and colorful with warm yellow tones.
From a psychological point of view, different colors can make people differentFor the psychological feelings, gray gives people a sense of calm, shrinkage, and distance, while orange gives people a happy and excited feeling.
Grenoye was particularly evident when he was escorted to the execution ground: Grenoye was imprisoned by chains in a depressive and heavy cell, and was about to be escorted by law enforcement officers for execution. For him, in addition to the physical and psychological heaviness Fear and restlessness.
When Grenoye entered the city, the screen took Grenoye as the first point of view, through a large number of short shots to quickly switch to show that Grenoye experienced an unprecedented variety of fresh smells when he entered the city for the first time. During the fast switching process The tones of the film are progressively superimposed from cold to warm in order. The change from cold to warm can make the psychological distance between the audience and Grenouer close, and the audience unconsciously shifts from neutral to Grenoye approached.
Finally, color creates an aesthetic conception and explores its connotation. The
film not only truly reproduces the extravagant life of the upper class in Europe in the 18th century. In the Baroque architecture, the ladies dressed in costumes are eager to perfume, sitting on the carriage and turning a blind eye to the suffering of the working people at the bottom;
and Grenoye The difficult growth trajectory has also fully demonstrated the suffering of the working people living at the bottom of society. The soundtrack of the
03
film is in great agreement with the tone of the picture, that is, with Grenoye's entry into the city as the demarcation point, almost no soundtrack was used in the early stage, and after he entered the city, most of the plot was enhanced by the soundtrack. According to the role of the soundtrack, it can be roughly divided into three types.
1. The synaesthetic
soundtrack of smell makes the audience unconsciously combine the audio-visual effects while enjoying the film, and psychologically produce the aesthetic sense of smell.
When Grenoye entered the city, he smelled a scent he had never felt before. Through the combination of different instruments, the different scents in the film could be expressed in a combination of audiovisual and language.
2. The performance of Grenoyer's psychological activities
In the film, Grenoyer is taciturn, and its psychological activities are difficult to express directly through images. It needs the help of the soundtrack, and this is also a way of manifesting the aesthetics of the wonders of the film "Perfume". Every time
pays special attention to the smell, the picture cuts into the music that matches it, or it is light and flexible (Grenoye's scene of smelling nature when he was a boy), or beautiful and elegant (He stood outside the perfume shop and smelled the perfume "Eros and Sai Qi"); or majestic (he used perfume to conquer everyone on the execution ground).
The film directly shows his important mental activities through repeated appearances of the orange girl selling oranges, such as feeling the beauty of the girl’s body fragrance for the first time, being obsessed with the smell when he is dying, and discovering his lack of body odor and when The magical charm of perfume is displayed on the execution ground to realize oneself. The soundtrack of
is different every time, but it is meticulous and beautiful, like the candlelight in the night, although it can't drive the darkness of Grenoye's heart, it makes us walk into his heart and empathize with him.
3. Promote the plot development of the film
As a commercial film, it is particularly important to grasp the narrative rhythm of the film.
, especially at the climax of the film, the soundtrack brings his own unique auditory charm to the extreme:
when he rides the carriage through the crowd, the music is slightly detailed, if anything, tens of thousands of citizens are watching the carriage, looking forward to the prisoners. The arrival of Grenoye;
And when he walked off the carriage in a formal dress, the soundtrack began to increase the performance of other instruments, and the expressiveness of the soundtrack gradually became stronger. When the executioner knelt in front of Grenoye, he declared his innocence and suffered. When the masses questioned, the music stopped abruptly;
and when Grenoyer conquered everyone with perfume until the bishop declared his innocence, the movie performed with a magnificent symphony and reached its climax.
Along with the shouts of the crowd, the soundtrack also shakes the hearts of the audience.
When the handkerchief floats in the air, the music returns to its original etherealness. Then, in the scene of tens of thousands of people having fun, the film replaces the symphony with holy and pure harmony, turning large-scale sexual activity into a sacred ritual.
's unique aesthetics. The original story of
's novel has a bizarre plot. The director Tom Tickway has made a bold adaptation. It inherits the European novels' tradition of exploring human nature and deep-level thinking about social issues, and is interpreted in the kingdom of wonderful smells The complexity of human nature.
Perfume——The aesthetics of death
death theme isHuman spiritual structure is a valuable symbol of freedom and multi-layered aesthetic reflection. Death image is a cognitive object of ontological existence. It is not only the highest proposition of philosophy and aesthetics, but also the ultimate meaning and nihil object of life and art. The so-called death of
is not the denial of beauty itself, but the infinite closeness to eternal existence. It is manifested as destroying the tangible life form, thereby establishing the perpetual existence of the spirit. The narration at the beginning of the
film mentioned "the fleeting kingdom of smells", so in order to preserve the smell, Grenoyer used perfume as a carrier to preserve the smell he pursued. The
film uses Baldini’s mouth to reveal the essence of perfume: “When they (the rose) die, the fragrance must be undamaged” - the fragrance of perfume in the eyes of ordinary people is murdered by nature and refined flowers. "Corpse".
Grenoye used to sniff the scent of a dead mouse in his youth, and the surrounding children looked at him with scared eyes. When the orange seller was accidentally killed by him, he was even more comfortable with her smell. From these aspects, what Grenoye was pursuing was the beauty of death that laid the groundwork for it.
At the end of the film, he chose to destroy himself, which can be considered as a pursuit of art.
Execution Grounds——The spirit of Apollo and Dionysus
The plot of the execution ground in the original novel is just an understatement, but it becomes the climax in the film, and is portrayed grand and sacred.
compares the plot and details of the film and the novel, we can see the director's good intentions. The original author of
Zuskind, the film director Tom Tikwei, and the producer Bern Yichinger are all Germans, so there must be more or less German culture in their works.
And here we have to mention Nietzsche, his aesthetic thought is an indispensable part of German culture.
The focus on the execution ground in the film is not only to meet the audio-visual needs of the aesthetics of the spectacle, but also to appropriately show Nietzsche's aesthetic views.
In Nietzsche's aesthetics, art is divided into plastic art and lyrical art-the spirit of Apollo and Dionysus.
Apollo, the god of light, is the god of light, the rectifier of order, and the symbol of the appearance of beauty. He creates an illusion that makes nature appear beautiful with bright brilliance. It is bright The appearance of clear individual bodies becomes a shining image of the principle of individualization, which makes people inspired by hallucinations, and Tao Ran forgets the pain of existence.
In the original work, Grenoye's image is ugly and vicious, and there is no basis for his conformity with the sun god Apollo.
However, in the film, along with the "makeover" of Grenoye's image from appearance to his character, the director also grasped the essential characteristics of perfume psychedelic and gave it a new meaning, allowing Grenoye to use perfume on the execution ground. The charm made everyone present a dreamlike illusion. Grenoyer, dressed in gorgeous clothes under the sun, was clear and bright, matching the image of Apollo. At this point, the
film has completed the transformation of Grenoye and paved the way for the emergence of the spirit of Bacchus.
Dionysus spirit is mainly manifested as drunk, which is manifested by people in a state of drunkenness and wildness.
Dionysus, the god of wine, symbolizes a huge primitive vitality in human beings, a kind of selflessness, impulsivity, and ecstasy. Under the control of the Dionysian spirit, people are full of happy ecstasy. All primitive impulses are liberated, without being bound by any rational concepts and principles, ignoring all sacred laws, indulging lust, and being drunk. In the
film, while the masses were waiting for the protagonist to be escorted to the execution ground, there were constant quarrels and quarrels. Afterwards, they were overwhelmed by the magical charm of perfume and staged a grand scene of friendship between thousands of people on the execution ground. Comparison. All people present at
are released. This is a kind of self-release. What everyone feels in it is the self not regulated by morals and laws, releasing the self that has been suppressed for a long time.
Nietzsche believes that this is to pursue an experience of releasing the shackles of individualization and returning to the original nature. After obtaining the highest joy of fusion with the world's ontology, "I" is no longer a simple individual, but one with all things. , Escaped the chaos of impermanence, and forgot the anxiety caused by death and the world.
Under the mysterious cheers of the god of wine, the individual charm of the god of sun disappears, just like the tens of thousands of people on the execution ground indulge in indulgenceAt that time, Apollo’s “spokesperson” Grenoye left Grasse quietly. The tragedy of
was born in the fusion of Apollo art and Bacchus art. It is like a tragedy performance on an ancient stage. The audience sees the image of Apollo-style masked characters and hears Bacchus-style music. Apollo makes Bacchus real, and Bacchus makes Apollo mad. It is between this reality and madness that the tragic art form that can make people produce "tragic pleasure" was born.
"Perfume" has become a successful spectacle movie through the reorganization of the film's picture structure, the reduction of the importance of discourse factors in the film, and the massive impact of the extremely exciting pictures and sound effects on the audience's audiovisual perception.
This is inseparable from the director’s full use of audio-visual effects and full play of his imagination. As Yizinger said: “We use the power of imagery, sound and music to create an atmosphere of smell.” The
film uses exquisite pictures. And the grand symphony makes the audience have a strong audio-visual experience. In the adaptation of the original work, the director no longer makes the audience just stay in the film’s beautiful audio-visual language and the twists and turns of the plot structure, and integrates Nietzsche’s aesthetics in the original sense. Thought, let the audience enjoy a grand and magnificent "olfactory feast".
